Genesee brewmaster Mike Mueller is retiring after 41 years at the brewery. He is seen in the old brew house at the St. Paul Street brewery.(Photo11: SHAWN DOWD/@sdowdphoto/, SHAWN DOWD/@sdowdphoto/staff pho)

Mueller, 64, the longtime heart and soul of the Genesee Brewery, retires this month after 41 years at the state's oldest brewery. Since arriving as a 24-year-old, self-described know-it-all, he has worked in just about every capacity at the brewery. He spent the final seven years of his career as the corporate brewmaster.

When Mueller clocks out the final time, Genesee will be losing a valuable link to its storied past. He was part of the development of iconic beers like Genesee Light and a key cog in making sure Genesee beer always tasted like Genesee beer.

"He’s an innovator, because he's done everything here," assistant brewmaster Matt James said . "He would never ask you to do something he hasn’t done already. He was always a stickler for details and doing things the right way."

Mueller just marvels at the thought of sticking with the same brewery for 40 years and adopting a new hometown.

"I was thinking the other day, 41 years doesn’t happen anymore," Mueller said. "A lot of people don’t stay at the same company, because companies change.

"After I moved here, I loved the city and the people. I met my wife (Eileen) here, so once I got married and starting having kids, this turned into the place to settle down.”

A brewing love story

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Genesee Brewery brewmaster Mike Mueller raises a toast to the employees and Rochester for supporting the brewery on May 22, 2015.(Photo11: Max Schulte/2015 file photo)

When it came time to decide what to do with his life, Mueller really didn't have much choice. He was destined to be a brewer.

It was a brewing love story.

His mother and father met after World War II when they were both working at Pabst Brewing in Milwaukee.

His mother, Florein, worked in the fermenting cellar office. His dad, Roland, spent 10 years at Pabst. After serving in the Marine Corps during World War II in the South Pacific and China, Roland used the money he earned through the G.I. Bill to attend brewing school.

And when Pabst didn't have an open brewing position, the young couple moved to Latrobe, Pennsylvania, to work for Rolling Rock. Roland eventually became brewmaster and retired from the brewery after 32½ years.

Roland was a member of the Master Brewers Association of the Americas and served as president of the Pittsburgh district.

Road to Rochester

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Genesee Brewery, the state's oldest brewery, opened in 1878.(Photo11: Will Cleveland/@WillCleveland13/Staff photographer)

When it came time to move onto the adult world, Mueller attended brewing school and got his first job as a brewer in 1976 at Anheuser-Busch in Columbus, Ohio. A longtime friendship between Rolling Rock's brewmaster and former Genesee brewmaster Clarence Geminn led to Mueller's arrival in Rochester.

"They were drinking buddies at brewing conventions and my name came up," Mueller said.

Mueller spent more than 30 years as an assistant brewmaster, including 14 years on the midnight shift. "I learned this plant inside and out, how to take care of the product, how to make it work," he said. "It was a very valuable tool when you need to keep the place open."

Sitting with him recently in the Genesee Brew House, directly south of the main brewing campus, Mueller began to outline how his journey intertwines with the ups and downs of New York's oldest brewery.

“When I first came here, everything was booming,” Mueller said. “A lot of the outdoor tanks, they weren’t here yet. The draft center wasn’t there yet. (Where the beer is kegged in the northeast corner of the campus.) All of the draft was still done here in the old building. We built the draft center. Just way the property has changed. This building we’re sitting in (the Genesee Brew House) belonged to a plumbing supply company."

He pointed to the east where the old Standard Brewing building stood at 13 Cataract St. That building was removed to make way for the construction of the Genesee Brew House. The cafeteria and cooler room, where employees could grab beer, are both long gone, too. The nurse's office was directly above the cold storage room.

Genesee brewmaster Mike Mueller is retiring after 41 years at the brewery. He is seen in the old brew house at the St. Paul Street brewery.(Photo11: SHAWN DOWD/@sdowdphoto/, SHAWN DOWD/@sdowdphoto/staff pho)

Later in his tenure, the brewery nearly closed in the late 1990s. An outside firm planned to come in and buy the entire facility. The plan was to make ethanol and then the Genny brand would be sold.

"We weren't going to make beer anymore," Mueller said.

But again, it was the spirit, resolve, resourcefulness, and vigor of the employees that saved the brewery. Some of the leaders, led by Tom Hubbard, banded together and bought the brewery in 2000, keeping it afloat. They renamed the brewery High Falls.

KPS Capital Partners bought the brewery in 2009 and restored the Genesee name. Genesee was joined with breweries like Pyramid and Magic Hat under the North American Breweries umbrella.

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Smoke billows out from the Genesee Brewery while the sun lights up the smoke in this photo taken from St. Paul Street in 1978.(Photo11: File photo/1978)

Costa Rica-based Florida Ice and Farm Co. purchased North American Breweries in 2012 and Mueller became the corporate brewmaster in 2011.

Mueller said his beer journey mirrors that of his father. Roland worked through trying and changing times at Rolling Rock as the brewery was bought by an investment firm and then sold to a bigger brewery (Labatt).

"I remember my father coming home and he told me he was making root beer," Mueller said with a wry smile. "They did all these things to keep the brewery open."

Mueller and Genesee did a lot of the same things. From the contracted production of drinks like Seagram's wine coolers to the Samuel Adams family of beers, Genesee reinvented itself numerous times.

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The unique view from behind the iconic Genesee Brewery sign atop the brewery, looking back at the Rochester city skyline, seen during a tour at Genesee Brewery on St. Paul Street. The Rochester brewery is almost done with the first phase of its $49.1 million modernization project. SHAWN DOWD/@sdowdphoto/, SHAWN DOWD/@sdowdphoto/staff pho

The view down on the massive modernization project at Genesee Brewery. The brewery is almost done with the first phase of its $49.1 million modernization project. SHAWN DOWD/@sdowdphoto/, SHAWN DOWD/@sdowdphoto/staff pho

Mark Fabrizio, director of craft breweries and project manager, looks over filtration that will be installed around the new tanks outside the cold block. SHAWN DOWD/@sdowdphoto/, SHAWN DOWD/@sdowdphoto/staff pho

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"The business has changed so dramatically since 1977 that we’ve become a company who is able to accommodate and do almost anything anyone asked us to do," he said. "That was just a survival thing."

(Seagrams is now part of the same North American Breweries family as Genesee. The brewery still maintains over 100 contracted beers and beverages. But is unable to speak about them due to non-disclosure agreements.)

Mueller said the development of Genny Light was one of his proudest accomplishments. The beer was developed to compete with Miller Lite. And the introduction of Dundee Honey Brown was a huge success for the brewery. It was truly one of the first craft beers, he said. The craft offerings were expanded under the Dundee brand.

Through the entire journey, Mueller said the brewery was driven by the determination of its workforce.

Gold standards

Genesee brewmaster Mike Mueller is retiring after 41 years at the brewery. He is seen in the old brew house at the St. Paul Street brewery.(Photo11: SHAWN DOWD/@sdowdphoto/, SHAWN DOWD/@sdowdphoto/staff pho)

"We did whatever we had to do to stay in business," Mueller said.

But the goal has always remained the same.

"The beer is the same as it always was," Mueller said. "That’s the main thing. That’s what I am most proud of. That’s been our goal through this whole tenure, to make sure the beer is always the same. I learned that from Clarence and the other brewmasters I’ve worked under."

And Mueller was instrumental in maintaining those standards, his colleagues said. That's been especially difficult with Genny's transition from a 1960s-era lauter tun brewing system to a highly efficient and technologically advanced mash filter system as part of the brewery's $45 million renovation and restoration plan.

James, the assistant brewmaster, started working at Genny 22 years ago. He called himself "a young punk kid" when he started and said, "I wanted to do things my way."

But Mueller helped James understand the importance of tradition at Genesee.

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"I just thought he was another boss I had to listen to. But over time, I came to realize that he knew what he was doing and there was always a reason to be a stickler about details and doing things the right way," James said. "He knows more beer right now than I will ever know. Nobody ever really knew that much about his wealth of knowledge. Whenever we needed something, he was there to freely dole it out, to get things done right."

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The new brewmaster, Steve Kaplan, himself a former brewer at Anheuser-Busch, has taken the reins from Mueller. He recognizes the weight of the position but remains excited to tackle the challenge.

"It’s awe-inspiring. I choked up a little bit there," Kaplan said. "There is a a lot of history here. You’ve got to honor all of that. But at the same time, we would never continue to move forward if we didn’t change and modernize. It’s cool, but there is a lot of weight behind it."

Mueller is still only a phone call away. He's already been in a few times to help troubleshoot, James said. (He's officially been on vacation since last month, using up all his accrued vacation. The retirement becomes official soon.)

"Somebody told me I should write a book," Mueller said. "I don't know about that. There have been a lot of characters who have worked here over the years. A lot of great men have controlled this company. The Wehle family, the Geminns, the list goes on and on. Just a lot of brewing tradition and it's going to carry on when I'm gone, that's for sure. I'm confident of that."